Mid-Coast Trolley line gets $1 billion federal grant

A Blue Line trolley leaves America Plaza, the current last station on the route.

A Blue Line trolley leaves America Plaza, the current last station on the route. (Union-Tribune file photo)

Joshua Stewart

The long-planned Mid-Coast Trolley line has received a $1 billion federal grant, the last key financial step to stretch the railway from UC San Diego and the Sorrento Valley biotech hub to downtown and the border.

The Federal Transit Administration announced Wednesday that the region received the money to build the nine-station, 11-mile extension to the Blue Line that runs from the border to downtown’s America Plaza Station. Construction is scheduled to begin in late-October and the first paying riders are expected in 2021.

The funding means that two disparate economic hubs — the border at San Ysidro and Tijuana and the bio-technology corridor in the Golden Triangle — will eventually be connected by the trolley system, and riders will be able to travel between the destinationcs without leaving their seats.